The occasion of this second exercitation springs from the first; viz. how or whence shall be left remaining on earth, after the thousand years of the glorious state of the Church, such a wicked offspring as Gog and Magog, if there shall be such universal burning of the world, as shall transform it into a new heaven and a new earth? To solve this knot, we must first know, who Gog and Magog are.

Verses 8, 9 state," that at the end of the thousand years, Satan, being loosed, shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog," whence we can rationally deduce no less, than that Gog and Magog are not this or that nation, but an extract and collection of the dregs and dross of many nations. This the Prophet Ezekiel signally confirms : Son of man set thy face against Gog in the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him; and say, thus saith the Lord, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and will bring thee forth, and all thy army, horses and horsemen, and all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company, with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords; Persia and Ethiopia, and Libya with them, all of them with shield helmet; Go

mer and his bands, the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands, and many people with thee :"n whence you have a fair prospect to see who Gog is, with his variety of nations embodied with him; as also what he is, viz. such as God will set himself against.

But then the grand question necessarily falls in, How can it consist with that glorious state and time, included within the one thousand years, that after it, even immediately at the very end thereof, there shall be extant such a crew as this? I confess this has been to me the most intricate knot throughout the whole doctrine of the Millennium. I was not thereby (as some learned men acknowledged to me they were) kept off from embracing so much of that doctrine as was revealed to me; yet it still perplexed me as a labyrinthian difficulty. I must therefore prophesy of this submissively, leaving the Church of Christ to judge. For besides that in mysteries of this nature, Christ hath usually some reserves, which he will not unveil till near the very time of fulfilling the whole; there is also a peculiar method in Christ's discoveries of such great things as these, whilst he intends and is intent to reveal. So that, as the world was made orderly and successively in six days, as an introduction to the Sabbath of rest; and several months are appointed for the product of

several fruits and flowers, (the preface to a complete summer,) Christ likewise is pleased to tell us his mind in sundry times or parcels. If therefore this be the day or the month in which a clear light is to spring forth in relation to this point, clearing the way to that millennian Sabbatism ;P what I can receive of it by prayer and scrutiny into the Scriptures, I shall cautiously communicate to the apocalyptical students among the expectant saints.

Many to whom I have propounded this gordian knot to be loosed, centre towards this opinion-That there shall be in the time of the thousand years a remnant of smooth hypocrites, extant upon the earth, as the hidden putrid matter or spawn; which at last, by the devil's influential brooding and hatching, shall be generated into Gog and Magog. They that are apt to conceive this remnant shall be a distinct body by themselves, seem to have in their eye some such passages as these: "he that is filthy, let him be filthy still:"q" no unclean thing shall enter:"-" without there shall be dogs."s

:

Others, who think that this remnant shall be a mixture sprinkled among the glorified saints on earth, hanker after such notions as these that as the Gibeonites, were hewers of wood and drawers of water to the Jewish Church, so these to the glorified Church shall be servile, and that if the saints must reign, they must have somebody to reign over;-and if they must rule the nations, there must be a communion, such as is between the governors and the governed.

I must however adhere to my principle before laid down (p. 281;) that this time of the thousand years

is a sinless time, and withal, a sorrowless time; and that the raised and changed saints shall not be brought into such a dim glory or cold comfort, as to have adjacent to them, or interjacent among them, men of sinful hearts. If believers now have a great spirit of discerning men, how much more will they have it then: discernment of false brethren amongst them, would, in every respect, be incongruous to a glorious estate. Christ, indeed, and the angels conversed on earth, unpolluted, but not ungrieved: and surely, in the same sense as angels are said to joy at mens' conversion," they also grieve at their transgressions. And if Christ hated hypocrites equally, if not more, than the profane, (when he said, that the publicans and harlots enter into heaven before them; and that the burning of the world is an universal deluge of fire on all evil persons, that obey not the gospel of Christ,w and on all evil things, even to the very hay and stubble of errors in his own elect;x) it cannot be fairly probable, that he will leave among his glorified saints such a corrupt brood, who often do more mischief secretly than the open wicked;-as Paul hints in his complaint of false brethren.

Now we hold, on the contrary, that there shall be no men on earth during this period, but such as shall attain to a perfect freedom in one kind or other from sin, and so from mortality also, throughout that time. For as all they, who, under the covenant of grace, have been incorporated into Christ by the spirit of faith, shall be raised or changed into an immutable state of perfection, never to be altered for the worse but for the better; so there shall be

many others, at that time alive on earth, who shall be restored for so long, only to an Adamitical state of innocency, according to the tenor of the covenant of nature made with Adam; and therefore shall be mutable, and shall fall, when in like manner they are assaulted by Satan. Out of these shall spring the brood of Gog and Magog. Thus you see how some shall never fall, whilst others shall. And you see on what grounds I have thus distinguished : viz. by the difference of being in Christ by the covenant of grace; and being in Adam, or as Adam in innocency, according to the covenant of nature. So that these that fall cannot be said to fall from grace, because they never had that which is properly called grace. And the reason of my so distinguishing is, because the Sacred Scriptures do so.

In tumbling over books I have found some learned companions in this opinion thus far; (if that will enable it to go down better with any ;) among whom I will name Dr. Twiss, in his letter sent by Dr. Meddus to Mr. Mede; also the learned author of "The Retired Man's Meditations," in the last chapter on the manifestation of the sons of God. And learned Mr. Mede himself says in his letter to Dr. Meddus,y "I have discovered

'ancient times; which occasioned,

as may seem, the death and burial of the main opinion itself, so generally at first believed. Yet, thus much I conceive the text seems to imply: that these saints of the 'first resurrection should reign here on earth in New Jerusalem, in a 'state of beatitude and glory, partaking of the divine presence and vision of Christ their King; as it were in a heaven upon earth, or 'new paradise, immutable, unchangeable, &c. That (for the better understanding of this mystery) we 'must distinguish between the state of the New Jerusalem,' and the 'state of the nations which shall 'walk in the light thereof:' they ⚫ shall not be both one, but differing. Therefore what is spoken particularly of the New Jerusalem, 'must not be applied to the whole Church which then shall be. New 'Jerusalem is not the whole Church, but the metropolis thereof, as also of the new world. The state of 'the nations which shall walk in her light, though happy and glo'rious, yet shall be changeable; as appears by the commotion of the nations, seduced at the end of the thousand years. But the state of 'those who dwell in New Jerusalem 'shall be extra omnem mutationis aleam" Blessed are those that have part in the first resurrection, ' for on them the second death hath no power.'

6

Though I agree with them in the substance of their statement, yet not in the latitude of it. For I include the living, that are changed at the coming of Christ, with those raised from the dead at the first resurrection. I am not persuaded, secondly, that all the nations that are said to walk in the light of New Jerusalem,

z 1 Thessalonians iv, 14-18.

shall attain only to a changeable perfection, to miscarry at last; because the text does not say, either, expressly, all the nations; nor does it, in that indefinite speech, 'the nations,' any how intimate, that it intends the universal of all nations: for then it needed not to have distinguished Gog and Magog. And that which follows in our text, that they are gathered together, and they come up, notes an extracted collection of parts or parcels out of diverse nations, called out by the devil's seduction; not all the nations themselves: for it were impossible for any one place to hold all nations mustered together for battle. that some shall be immutably happy, others mutably, is undeniable. 1st. Because, though the New Jerusalem shall be enlightened with the glory of God and of the Lamb, and the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light thereof; yet some remain seduceable, and are seduced at last to their own destruction. 2ndly. Because some encompass, as enemies, the camp of the saints; others are the saints encompassed. 3rdly, Over some the second death hath no power; over others it hath.

But

If any think a state of happiness, equal to that of paradise, inconsistent in regard to those who have no grace, I answer: We know that Adam himself, in a state of innocency, had no grace, properly so called,—either of justifying faith, or sanctifying infusions of the Holy Spirit, (which are additions to the nature of them now saved,) but only an exact rectitude of nature: and yet God judged him meet, and would make him no meeter, for that glorious state in paradise. And likewise all the angels had but a natural perfection from their crea

a Hebrews ii, 16.

tion; yet were they accounted by God himself fit for his glorious presence in heaven. If they had ever received saving infused grace, they could never have fallen from it; as all the Scriptures touching perseverance do demonstrate: therefore it was on account of their natural perfect rectitude, that they were at first put into heaven. Those that fell, fell into a state of wanted grace; but those that stood, stood not (I conceive) by inward sanctifying grace. For they were in no union with Christ as sons;a but were in relation to Christ as servants.b

But besides these matters of fact, let us heed what hints the Scriptures give de jure, touching the influence of Christ's mediatorship, in restoring part of mankind into a changeable happy estate in the time of the thousand years. For though it be not express, Rev. xxi, 2, that the nations shall eat of the fruit of the tree of life, in the midst of the New Jerusalem; yet it is positively there asserted, that the leaves of that tree shall be for the healing of the nations. And in 1 Tim. iv, 10, God is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe." Yea, in 1 Tim. ii, 5, 6, we have more, and in higher terms: viz. "There is one God and one Mediator between God and

66

man, the man Christ Jesus, who

gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." Observe the last clause-' in due time;' for it is in the Greek, καιροις ιδιοις, ("in its own proper seasons," in the plural number;") seeming to intimate, as if neither in the Apostle's times, nor yet to our times, hath it so clearly appeared how or wherein Christ is a ransom for all, as it shall before the ultimate end of the world:

b Ibid. i, 7, 14.